(Adds details on affected companies and offshore platforms, oil
and gas prices)
By Catherine Ngai and Liz Hampton
CALGARY, Alberta/HOUSTON, June 28 (Reuters) - At least two
offshore oil platforms halted operations on Tuesday in the U.S.
Gulf of Mexico after a fire at a natural gas processing plant in
Mississippi shut a crucial pipeline that brings output onshore,
several companies said.
The fire at the Enterprise Products Partners LP EPD.N
plant in Pascagoula was brought under control, but officials
were forced to close the 225-mile (362 km) Destin gas pipeline
system that can carry 1.2 billion cubic feet per day from
offshore fields to Pascagoula.
There were no injuries from the blaze, Enterprise said,
adding the cause was under investigation. Enterprise took
ownership of the plant from BP Plc on June 1.
Destin, majority-owned by BP BP.L with Enbridge Inc
ENB.TO a minority partner, said it was declaring force
majeure, a legal clause that allows it to scrap commitments, as
a result of the fire.
By Tuesday afternoon, the plant had not yet resumed
operations. In a notice, Destin said that Enterprise had not yet
indicated a timeline for the restart, and was looking at
offering shippers options for alternate offshore transportation.
Southern Green Canyon crude WTC-SGC , an offshore, medium
grade delivered into Nederland, Texas, traded at $3.25 a barrel
discount to the U.S. crude benchmark on Tuesday compared with a
midpoint of $3.80 below WTI on supply concerns.
Destin's pipeline is connected to over 10 oil and gas
platforms with capacity to produce hundreds of thousands of
barrels of oil and millions of cubic feet of gas a day.
Murphy Oil Corp (NYSE:MUR) MUR.N said it shut its Thunder Hawk
platform, which has capacity to handle 60,000 bpd of oil and 70
mmcfd of natural gas.
Murphy added it plans to flow gas to an alternate processing
facility and expects minimal disruptions to its operations.
Producers in some cases have several different routes to bring
output ashore.
Offshore company LLOG, a partner of investment group
Blackstone (NYSE:BX) BX.N , said it was shutting its Delta House floating
production system, which has 100,000 bpd of oil and 240 mmcfd of
gas capacity.
Oil major BP declined to comment on the status of its
Thunder Horse and Na Kika platforms, both of which tie into the
Destin pipeline and together produce close to 400,000 bpd of oil
and more than 700 mmcfd of natural gas.
Royal Dutch Shell RDSa.L said it was not impacted.
Williams Partners LP WPZ.N said the Gulfstream Pipeline, a
joint venture with Spectra Energy (NYSE:SE) Partners LP SEP.N , appeared
to be unaffected.
Other Gulf of Mexico producers, including Stone Energy
SGY.N and Freeport McMoRan FCX.N , operate facilities that
connect to the Destin pipeline, according to a company map. They
did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The U.S. crude benchmark CLc1 settled up $1.52 to $47.85
following a two-day rout as traders bid up the benchmark on
expected inventory draws. O/R
Gas futures NGc1 rose more than 20 cents to $2.93 per
million BTU. Traders attributed the spike to hot weather instead
of the fire. About 137 million cubic feet of gas was due to flow
through the meter outside the plant on Tuesday, according to
Thomson Reuters Analytics flow data.
Several social media messages first said the blaze was at
Chevron's CVX.N 330,000 barrels per day refinery in
Pascagoula, but police denied this.
(Additional reporting By Erwin Seba in Houston and Scott
DiSavino in New York; Writing by Terry Wade; Editing by Cynthia
Osterman and Phil Berlowitz)